Health and safety must have the same status within your workplace as other business and production goals.
Commitment to health and safety
Commitment across the workplace begins with management. They will set the culture of the organisation.
Workers and their representatives must also commit to health and safety policies and procedures for them to be used effectively.
There also needs to be commitment to build a strong foundation for health and safety. This will include key people, their skill base, and the proper channels to drive effective health and safety activities.
It means building a structure for health and safety to ensure that it becomes a part of core business.
Develop a health and safety policy
A health and safety policy reflects the commitment of the organisation. The policy should be widely distributed, a senior manager should sign and date it, and it should be reviewed and updated at least every two years.
A health and safety policy is a way of demonstrating your commitment – provided of course that you back your words up with action. Also ensure that:
- your policy is highly visible
- management lead injury prevention by example
- injury prevention responsibilities are built into policy statements, job descriptions or performance objectives
- appropriate resources – time, people and dollars – are available to implement health and safety activities
- managers understand the organisation’s health and safety issues
- workers are involved and trained in health and safety
- you have a positive workplace that supports and recognises health and safety systems.
Build a foundation
A strong foundation will help implementation run smoothly and will provide sustainable health and safety activities in the long term. To build a foundation you need to:
- identify and support workplace ‘champion(s)’ for health and safety initiatives
- ensure key workers have clear roles and responsibilities, and appropriate training and education
- involve workers in health and safety through a task force, committee, team, etc
- ensure that everyone in the workplace has an understanding of how workplace injuries and illnesses are caused, and the actions needed to prevent them
- develop ACC WorkSafe Cycle components
- integrate health and safety into other business processes – eg team meetings and business planning.
Document your commitment
Smaller companies with, say, fewer than 10 workers, may have an overall mission statement that includes their commitment to health and safety rather than a specific health and safety policy.
The statement needs to reflect a genuine desire to protect and value workers.
In these circumstances, managers will invariably only have a few workers and work alongside them. They are more likely to keep on top of health and safety issues as soon as they arise.
Larger organisations may need more comprehensive procedures to show that they are aware of, and actively managing, health and safety issues. Significant hazards need to be controlled whatever the size of the organisation.
Walk the talk
Commitment goes well beyond merely writing a policy and associated manuals.
Managers who are effective in health and safety drive their safety programmes by ‘walking the talk’.
You need to be active in the workplace, be aware of health and safety requirements, and treat them with the same importance as all other areas of your business.
Last updated: 20April2009